Baruch Spinoza Ethics Quotes & Sayings

The superstitious know how to reproach people for their vices better than they know how to teach them virtues, and they strive, not to guide men by reason, but to restrain them by fear, so that they flee the evil rather than love virtues. Such people aim only to make others as wretched as they themselves are, so it is no wonder that they are generally burdensome and hateful to men. — Baruch Spinoza

Those, who are believed to be most self - abased and humble, are generally in reality the most ambitious and envious — Baruch Spinoza

He who has a true idea, knows at that same time that he has a true idea, nor can he doubt concerning the truth of the thing. — Baruch Spinoza

Minds, however, are conquered not by arms, but by love and nobility. — Baruch Spinoza

For though men be ignorant, yet they are men — Baruch Spinoza

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself. — Baruch Spinoza

It will be said that, although God's law is inscribed in our hearts, Scripture is nevertheless the Word of God, and it is no more permissible to say of Scripture that it is mutilated and contaminated than to say this of God's Word. In reply, I have to say that such objectors are carrying their piety too far, and are turning religion into superstition; indeed, instead of God's Word they are beginning to worship likenesses and images, that is, paper and ink. — Baruch Spinoza

Love is nothing but Joy with the accompanying idea of an external cause (Ethics, part III, proposition 13, scholium). — Baruch Spinoza

Let unswerving integrity be your watchword. — Baruch Spinoza

The good which every man, who follows after virtue, desires for himself he will also desire for other men ... — Baruch Spinoza

Men, in so far as they live in obedience to reason necessarily do only such things as are necessarily good for human nature, and consequently for each individual man. — Baruch Spinoza

All laws which can be violated without doing any one any injury are laughed at. Nay, so far are they from doing anything to control the desires and passions of men that, on the contrary, they direct and incite men's thoughts the more toward those very objects, for we always strive toward what is forbidden and desire the things we are not allowed to have. And men of leisure are never deficient in the ingenuity needed to enable them to outwit laws framed to regulate things which cannot be entirely forbidden ... He who tries to determine everything by law will foment crime rather than lessen it. — Baruch Spinoza

Nothing forbids man to enjoy himself, save grim and gloomy superstition — Baruch Spinoza